


[Abandoned WIP] Decimation

by Zeke Black (istia)



Series: Abandoned WIP [4]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Found Family, M/M, POV Buck Wilmington, POV J. D. Dunne, Pre-Chris Larabee/Ezra Standish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 13:51:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1820653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wasteland the world has become after a cataclysm, a scavenger unit led by Chris Larabee sets out on its difficult journey home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[Abandoned WIP] Decimation

**Author's Note:**

> This story was, like all my Mag7 fic, going to be Chris/Ezra. That dynamic isn't even set-up in this introductory sequence, but I've marked the story as slash because, while this fragment reads as gen, it was never going to be a gen story. If this fic were ever to be finished--which isn't likely--it would have that focus.

In the crowded, filthy, barricaded town known as Tomsville more than three hundred miles north-east of New Colony, the three survivors of Unit 7 huddled close to a stinking dung-fed fire, their cold hands cupped around chipped tankers holding warmed beer. The liquid smelled yeasty and clean; the beer was valued for its ability to ward off the stink of the fire and the unwashed bodies that crowded the small, ill-lit room more than it was for its gritty taste. Buck sipped the watery stuff and pulled a face. Josiah raised a sardonic eyebrow at him, at which Buck shrugged and grinned. Chris appeared unaware of them.

Buck leaned closer to his two companions and pitched his voice low. "I've found an alternator. They want a lot for it, but it's probably within market price. Josiah, I've arranged for you to look at it tonight at nine."

Josiah nodded. "Any chance of extra flour?"

"Not yet. I'm trying to make contacts, but these people are tribal and don't take easily to strangers. At least, not strangers without a lot of barter goods. We'll do better if we can reach Eagle Bend. We're known there."

"We're going to be low on rations if we can't get some kind of bulk grain."

"I know, I know. I just don't know how to get any. Hell, I'm not even sure the guy'll agree to barter the alternator." He turned to the silent man at his side, and steeled himself to speak. "Chris, did you give any further thought to getting replacements?"

Chris's bleak face turned to him. Buck stiffened himself to meet the stone-cold eyes, and managed to do it evenly and without an excess of compassion, which Chris would never forgive him for.

Chris's voice was a weary rasp. "'Replacements'? Is that how you think of them, Buck? Parts to be replaced, like the alternator? Is that all they were?"

"You know damned well that ain't how I think of them." He leaned forward so he could whisper the words with all the contained passion throbbing along his nerves. "But they're gone and if we want to continue our mission and get home safely, we need to find help. We can't do it alone. And, hell, we've got three free spaces in the rig that could get three people out of this hellhole. If we can just get the rig operational, we could make it back to New Colony."

"And how do you propose we choose, Buck? Three people out of this teeming mass. Three people worth saving and three people who might--just might--have some skills that can be useful to the territory. Got any ideas, Buck?"

Josiah's slow, deep voice intervened with the calmness he radiated seemingly at will--when he wasn't in a crazy mood. "I know one man who would be an asset." To the fixed gaze of two pairs of suddenly attentive eyes, he said, "Nathan Jackson. I saw him at the clinic. He's a healer. He's young and hasn't had what you'd call formal training, but few have these days. He's a good man."

"You know him?"

"Met him a few years ago, during the end of the Territorial War. He was a young transporter who saved my life, risking his own to carry me out of the battle to the medic area. And I wasn't the only one he saved that day by a long shot."

After a brief silence, Chris said, "All right. See if he's interested in joining."

"We'd better meet him," Buck added.

"I'll set it up."

Late that evening, they gathered in an even seedier and more crowded bar than the one they'd been regularly using. The beer was not only watery and scummy, but warm; they bought a tankard each only to secure spots around a knife-gouged table, then settled to wait. Buck leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, too tired to do more than smile half-heartedly at a slantwise glance from a pair of gleaming black eyes. Josiah looked like his usual unshakeable self, but tension was evident in the square set of his broad shoulders. None of them were at ease in this crowded den where strangers were vulnerable both because they weren't related to any family or tribe or group, and therefore fair game for everyone, and because they couldn't read the silent signals that were a second language to the inhabitants. Buck couldn't wait to get clear of this walled settlement, even though the exterior was filled with quite other and inescapable dangers of its own; at least the rigors of the land were familiar.

He also hoped getting Chris away from this press of humanity would help the healing start. They'd been phenomenally lucky in their eleven months of operating as a canvassing unit; this trip marked their first fatalities. And when they did it, they did it ostentatiously, losing half of their group. One man and two women, close, dear friends--and more than friends, two of them--were dead in the wilderness. The rest of them had barely managed to limp the rig to dubious safety in Tomsville.

His thoughts were interrupted by a figure sliding onto the bench next to Josiah across the table. He looked up and took the chance to study the man as Josiah greeted him. Nathan Jackson was tall and well-built, with a loose-limbed grace that bespoke confidence and self-assurance, but his open face showed no sign of arrogance. He seemed genuinely pleased to see Josiah, and turned to Buck and Chris with nothing more dire in his manner than intelligent watchfulness. His eyes were large, warm, and disarming. Buck shook his hand and felt the calluses on the strong, slender fingers. The hands of a healer. Buck felt a thrill of excitement. If they could bring a healer back to New Colony, the value to the community would be worth more than any amount of scavenged material from the city ruins. Nathan was young--maybe a trio of years younger than Buck's own twenty-seven years--but he exuded the confidence of a man assured in his craft.

Even Chris came out of his melancholy funk and observed the healer with a sharp-eyed assessment. He managed a dour smile over the handshake. Within minutes, the decision was made. Buck's, Chris's, and Josiah's eyes met and passed the message: agreement. Nathan would fit in, Buck was sure of it, and some of the tension gripping him since the fight that had killed one of their friends and mortally wounded the other pair seeped away, leaving him feeling exhausted, but finally in a good way.

"I heard you're looking for three people," Nathan said, to the offer from Chris to join them.

All three of them looked at him sharply.

Nathan lifted his hands, open and unthreatening in a placating gesture. "I heard it at the clinic. Your rig coming in, and what happened to it, has been the talk of the place. We've heard about the scavenge rigs, but we haven't seen one before. And the talk says you lost three people."

"Maybe." Chris looked at him with the even stare that unnerved most people.

Nathan looked back at him, radiating his own brand of calm courage. Chris let the silence stretch and Nathan wasn't the one who broke it.

"Got a reason for asking?"

"I've got two bunkmates. I want them to come, too."

"That wasn't the deal." Chris looked at Josiah, who shrugged.

"They're not healers, too, by any chance, are they?" Buck couldn't quite keep the hope out of his voice.

Nathan met Buck's eyes and shook his head. He looked stubborn all of a sudden, the confidence he'd been exuding transmuted into bullishness.

"Nope. But they've got skills; they ain't passengers. I ain't asking for charity or free rides. You lost people from your rig; I got people who can pull their weight."

"What kind of skills?" Chris looked all business now, attention sharp as knives. "And who are they? Family?"

"Yeah, family of a kind. We been podmates since we landed in the orphanage round about the same time. I been looking out for them for twelve years, and they been keeping me sane for as long. None of us are blood kin, but we're family all the same. I want to get 'em out. We all done our time in this place, and it's dangerous. JD was stabbed last month, just because he's small. He's too valuable an asset to throw away in this dump. He deserves better, and the world can use his skills."

"And just what skills might those be?"

"JD's gifted in handling tech. Give him something he ain't seen before and he can figure it out. He knows it by its feel or something, the way I can tell when a wound is going bad just by touching the skin round about. He don't have no more schooling than me, but he knows it up here." Nathan tapped the side of his head and met each of their eyes in turn. "And Vin's a hunter. He's the best tracker and hunter in this place. Even the oldsters admit that. They won't be happy to see him go."

The silence was long and thoughtful. Nathan sat composed; Buck could see tension in his posture, but the healer was too determined to have his way to give into it. He wanted out, desperately; that was obvious. But it was equally obvious he wanted his friends out, too.

"What if we said the offer's for you alone?" Chris's voice was a lazy drawl.

Nathan took a deep breath and his young-old face settled into sad lines. "Then I reckon I'd have to turn it down. We been together for twelve years. I ain't leaving them here alone."

Chris grinned; it had a feral quality to it, but was, nevertheless, a surprisingly warm and charming smile. "Family, huh? And worth fighting for." He looked across the table. "Josiah?"

Josiah looked consideringly at Nathan's watchful face. "I trust Nathan's judgment."

"All right. Why don't you bring 'em to the rig tomorrow morning and we'll size each other up. It's close quarters in a rig for weeks on end; people have to be able to live and work together."

"Uh, that might not be possible. I mean, um, I haven't exactly told them yet. I wanted to see what you'd say."

"So there's a chance they won't want to come?"

"Uh, no, they want out of here as much as I do. It's just that it might be better to do it all at once, you know? If I tell 'em and bring 'em over when you're ready to leave and there's not much time to think about it."

Chris frowned and Josiah looked thoughtful, but then Chris shrugged and stood.

"All right, then. You know your people best, so we'll leave it up to you. Dawn the day after tomorrow. Bring the minimum amount of baggage; we don't have much storage for personal items. We'll be leaving without you if you don't turn up."

Chris walked out. Buck paused to nod at the smiling yet worried-looking healer and followed Chris. It was late, and the next day would be long. They needed to get those parts somehow, and then get them fitted into the rig in double-quick time. That would be Buck's and Josiah's job while Chris was bartering for the necessary supplies they needed. It would be a long and tiring day, but soon, with luck, they'd be free of this blighted place where three of their own had died.

:::::::

_The world was an unsafe place. The remnants of humanity huddled in bunkers and barricaded villages, or traveled in caravans that gave the false courage of safety in numbers: an illusion punctured each time another caravan was destroyed in transit. The world outside the pockets of civilization was inhabited by a few hardy gangs, a lot of marauding animals, and natural dangers that had swept the planet in the wake of the nuclear winter. When the few survivors emerged into the daylight once more, it was to find a world that bore little resemblance to what they'd known. Volcanoes and earthquakes had destroyed or altered areas as the earth responded geologically to the atomic pounding it had received. Acid rain had destroyed all surface life but the hardiest, and precipitation could still be dangerous to exposed human tissue if precautions weren't taken._

 _In the south-west of what had once been North America, the weather fluctuated between rainy and dry seasons, not necessarily by dependable rote. Seedlings people tried to nurture were as often as not either washed out of the ground and rotted or baked to death. Clean water was a precious commodity, more valuable than gold. Tsunamis had destroyed and remade the coastlines of every continent on the planet, sheering away vast tracts of land larger than the old state of California had been. Some of the survivors were old enough to remember, if only barely, what the world had been like before the Decimation; to the younger folk--those few born whole and hearty enough to survive in the wake of the disasters--the World Before was a myth, a fairy tale of_ Once upon a time.

_And yet the ruins of great cities existed as mute testimony that the world had once been other than it presently was. The cities were dangerous places, and situated far from the new settlements. It was said the corpses caught in the rubble after the ultimate disaster had numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and the rats and hyenas and other surviving scavengers had flocked to the cities in massive hordes it was unsafe to go near. It was said the battles these creatures had staged in the ruins of humankind's greatest urban achievements rivaled those of the humans who had destroyed their own and every other creatures' world, and that scavenger blood mingled freely with that of humans, and scavenger bodies were scavenged in their turn, while the hordes ate and slept and fought and mated in the wasteland, producing mutant tribes of themselves adapted to the harsh new environment at a speed human beings couldn't match._

_But the oldsters said lots of things, and they didn't all need to be believed. Truth was, there weren't enough people left in the Land to reclaim a portion of what had been lost. The scavengers might number in the thousands, but people counted themselves in hundreds, and counted themselves well off if they had a family, even a family of two, and could keep that family safe within the barricades._

_In this inhospitable world, however, there was a need for people who didn't stay huddled within the shelters, but who went out deliberately in search of anything that could help human life maintain and strengthen its fragile existence. The territorial government in New Colony chose and outfitted units and sent them on missions to discover and retrieve as much old tech from the ruins of civilization as they could. Some called them Wage Suicides. Suicide was common enough amongst the people; being paid, and paid well--rumor told of untold quantities of food and water being given to these special few--to do it was a bone of contention with some folk who were too cowardly to volunteer or who were turned away as unfit physically or mentally to have a chance at success. The government ignored the discontent and continued to send out units whenever they were able to outfit a vehicle large enough and strong enough to withstand as many of the natural, human, and scavenger predations as possible. Many of the units never returned at all. Some limped home wounded and battered. A few managed one or two successful trips and brought home the goods the scientists needed._

_The most successful of all the units had managed a legendary four successful trips into the ruins of the territory's cities before disappearing on its fifth trip. Scavenging trips could take three or four months to complete; by the fifth month, the government officials had sighed and put a black X in the column next to Unit 7, and the bookies had grumbled, but been forced to pay off the bets. People who had seen Unit 7 as an example of rising good fortune for them all sank back into resignation and counted their losses, while those who had been convinced the Unit couldn't possibly continue its lucky streak celebrated their winnings. The governing council doggedly scrounged for enough parts to outfit another vehicle to give another unit a fighting chance and plotted the next crucial mission to the ruins to the east. As far as New Colony was concerned, Unit 7 was dead._

_And in that assessment, they were partially right._

:::::::

Dawn two days later gave them leaden air, heavy with the threat of rain. Buck woke in his bunk in the rig and stretched sore muscles. The day before had been even harder and longer than he'd expected. Virtually everyone had heard of the rig's presence by now. Some regarded it as the devil's advocate, tempting people with thoughts of the world outside the shelter of the settlement, but many more saw it as a potential savior, come to whisk them away from this crowded pit where violence and misery and hunger stalked every person, and death was a familiar visitor. Keeping the people off and out of the rig while they'd been working on it had sapped Chris's small supply of patience and good will, especially when the bartering for basic supplies had soared to ridiculous terms such as passage for two persons in exchange for a cured pork haunch. They had to leave or risk either losing the rig or killing people to fight their way out. They didn't want to do either.

But they didn't intend to lose the rig.

They were revved and secured to leave as the grey light spread upwards from the eastern horizon, but there was no sign of Nathan. The crowd around the rig got restive when Josiah started the engine.

"We'd better go." Chris's voice was terse and his fingers tapped the back of the driver's seat as he stood behind Josiah.

"They won't open the gate until the sun is fully up."

"Josiah, he's not coming. We can wait at the gate."

"Best get away from this crowd," Buck warned. "They're not pleased at realizing they can't break in."

Steps sounded overhead on the roof. Buck double-checked that the ceiling vents were bolted, and jumped as a loud thump overhead sounded.

"Go!"

Josiah put the rig in gear at Chris's command. At the small lurch forward, the thumps overhead acquired the distinctive sound of people falling rather than attempting to break through the vents with their feet, and there were yells from the crowd outside as some of the individuals atop rolled off. Dang fools. Did they seriously think they had a chance of breaking into a rig that was reinforced to withstand the perils of the outside?

They tried to move quickly enough to lose the trailing crowd, but the streets of the settlement, such as they were, were made for people and carts, not motorized vehicles, and certainly not a vehicle the size of the rig. They had to move slowly, negotiating the steep turns and the throngs of people, some of whom seemed awestruck at seeing the lumbering monster and stood gaping in the middle of the road until blasts of the horn sent them scuttling out of the way. Buck stared out of the front windows at the heaving packed throngs and felt his skin crawl. How could people live like this? How could they live where they could never be alone or clean or safe? No wonder they were desperate to escape. Even the unknown dangers of the outside were preferable to the known dangers of life within, at least with the rig's armored protection as a guard. They didn't understand the dangers outside, but, shit, it couldn't be worse than living in this filthy press of desperate humanity every day of one's life.

The large steel-reinforced gate loomed before them, to their collective relief. The guards were expecting them; anyone was free to leave, if they were fool enough to want to; the gates were locked at night to keep out scavengers, not keep in citizens--and were swinging the gates open as they approached. Josiah was on a steady course, but slammed on the brakes when a dark figure loomed up in front of the rig.

Shit. Nathan.

"Buck, get the door open."

As soon as the rig slowed, Buck unbolted the back door and swung it open. Chris stood at the side of the double door, gun in hand; Buck took the same stance on the other side. They were expecting a quick pick-up, shut the doors, and leave. It all seemed to go smoothly as Nathan pushed a black-haired kid inside, followed rapidly by a taller figure, and leaped in himself, turning to pull the doors shut before any of the surging crowd could follow.

"Hey!"

The shout was startling, coming not from outside, but from one of the fellows who had just got into the rig. Buck ignored it, reaching for the door, but was shoved aside and fell against the back wall next to the door.

"What the hell--?"

"Vin!" Nathan grabbed the long-haired man who was inexplicably trying to hurtle back out the doors as the rig was moving at a slow pace and the crowd was still surging around them, the braver trying to grab the doors while Chris kicked them off.

"What the fuck is going on?" Chris's look was moving from pissed-as-hell over towards murderous.

"We have to go," Nathan was shouting at the lean figure struggling to pull away from him. "They can only take three."

"Damn you, Nathan!"

A fist felled Nathan and the long-haired man was leaping out the back of the rig. Still without a clue what was going on, Buck became aware the black-haired kid who'd been the first inside was making his own leap for the door. Nathan surged up and caught the boy around the waist and hauled him back easily, kicking and screaming.

"Let me go! Dammit, Nathan, how could you do that?"

The kid looked to be on the verge of tears, but a sneaker-clad foot connected with Nathan's shin and made him loosen his hold enough for the kid to wiggle free and plunge for the door, only to have Nathan snag him by his backpack. Before he could shake his arms free of the pack, the long-haired man appeared out of the crowd outside, supporting someone with his left arm and laying about viciously at the crowd with his feet and free hand.

"Vin!" JD screamed, but Nathan clung to him desperately.

"Fuck!" Chris jumped to the ground and helped to free Vin from the crowd. Buck, in the doorway, found himself pulling up a mostly limp deadweight. He let the figure sink to the floor to focus on closing the doors as Chris and Vin leaped inside and turned to add their strength to the task.

"Gun it!" Chris yelled.

Josiah pressed the accelerator and they all staggered at the abrupt leap forward. They passed the gates, and Josiah upped the speed to encourage the last of the riders on the roof to get off when he slowed a hundred yards outside the fence. Anyone who stayed aboard farther would die.

Buck left it to Josiah to monitor the situation with boarders, focusing instead on the sprawled new members of their team--plus one extra.

"What the hell was that all about?"

Even Chris's rage didn't seem to penetrate the newcomers' preoccupation with each other.

The fellow with long, wavy, light brown hair--Vin--and dark-haired JD were huddled protectively over the fourth figure on the floor. Buck looked at the newcomers and realized how young they were. The small one, JD, was only a kid, maybe seventeen at most. He was white-faced and shaky, but he looked up at Nathan with the hurt of betrayal in his large eyes. Vin didn't look much older; probably not more'n twenty-one or so. People matured early and didn't tend to live long since the Decimation, but, damn, they were young nonetheless. Buck was maybe ten years older than the youngest, and felt fifty.

And then there was the fourth newcomer, who was a huddle on the floor, mostly obscured by Vin and JD. Vin was leaning down talking to the figure in a low voice.

"Is he okay?" Anxiety made JD's young voice high.

"Caught a rock on the head. He's bleeding bad. Give me your handkerchief, JD."

JD produced a large, stained handkerchief from his jeans pocket. Vin folded it and pressed it against the fallen man's forehead. Buck met Chris's eyes; Chris was tight-lipped with fury, barely containing himself.

"Let me see." Nathan tried to push JD aside, but the kid, with a sudden show of backbone that made Buck grin and revise his initial opinion of naive youthfulness, shoved him back so sharply that Nathan staggered out of his squat and fell on his backside.

"Don't touch him." The growl was Vin's, but JD's round face, still with vestiges of baby fat, managed to look almost as grim.

"Look, I did it for us--"

"Josiah!" Chris's yell drowned out Nathan's voice.

"Yo."

"We clear?"

"Yup."

"Take us out a mile and stop. I want this sorted out before we go any farther. Buck, give 'em a hand in getting that guy off the floor and on a bunk."

The unknown proved to be a young guy around Vin's age, maybe a couple years older. He groaned and pushed at their hands as he was lifted; Vin's voice settled him. Chris got out the medical kit and handed it to Nathan, who looked at it, then looked helplessly at the bunk.

"Go on," Chris grated. "You're the healer. Treat him, dammit."

Nathan took a hesitant step forward. Vin rounded on him, but, before he could speak, Chris said, "What happens in this rig is my business. Step away from the bunk and let Nathan see to him." Letting the tableau stay frozen for no more than two seconds, Chris spoke in his coldest tone. "Now."

Vin looked up, sharp eyes meshing with Chris's narrowed ones. The younger man gave in and Buck let go a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Chris had that way about him. He had the manner of command because he was prepared at every point to back up his commands with action. Vin's decision to obey had saved them one more bloody nose on this day that wasn't starting out at all as it had been supposed to.

Nathan's refusal to bring his friends to meet them had an ominous aura in retrospect.

"You're Vin?" Chris's voice was still flinty, and he looked as hard and mean as legend painted him.

"Vin Tanner."

"I'm Chris. This is Buck. Josiah's driving. I assume Nathan told you about us?"

"To a point. He left out a few details, like the fact we were gonna be kidnapped."

Damn if the guy's glare wasn't almost a match for Chris's honed steel. Chris, though, just turned away from the provocation to pin his gaze on the youngest member of the group.

"You're JD."

"Yes, sir. JD Dunne. Are you really Chris Lara--"

A groan from the bunk had Vin shouldering Nathan away. Nathan gave way as JD went to join Vin in crouching over the bunk.

"He'll be all right." Nathan sounded old and weary as he wiped his hands on a rag. "Mild concussion, probably. He'll be woozy and in and out of consciousness, but he'll recover soon enough."

"How nice," Chris said, his voice spitting out between clenched teeth. "And just who the fuck is he? And what the fuck is going on?"

The rig came to a stop and Josiah clambered over the back of the seats and joined them. He sat on the bench seat facing the bunks; Buck sank down beside him. Chris remained standing, his arms folded across his chest, radiating fury and impatience in Chris's inimitable manner.

"Yeah, Nathan? What the fuck is going on?" Vin turned to face them, but didn't move away from what seemed like a protective position in front of the bunk. JD rose to stand beside him, his young face worried and strained as he looked from one face to another.

"I got this chance to get us out, the way we've always talked about! This is it, Vin--that one elusive, rare chance. I knew Josiah during the War, and when I saw him at the clinic, and heard what happened to their team, I knew it was our chance."

"Yeah, I got that part. What I don't get is why you tried to leave Ezra behind."

Nathan spoke only to Vin, half turned away from the three older men to his right. "They lost _three_ people."

Vin stared at him steadily, then said, in a low, deadly voice, "Did you ask?"

"I couldn't risk losing our chance. You have to see that. This was it--what we've been hoping for and waiting for all these years, what we've talked about so often. We deserve it, Vin. JD deserves a chance at something better than what that cesspit can give him."

"And Ezra don't, right?" Nathan made no response, just stood there looking at the younger man helplessly. Vin said, "You didn't have the right to make that decision for me, Nathan."

"Or me either!" JD piped up.

Vin's voice remained cold. "You lied to us. You said we was just gonna talk to these people. And you never said nothing about leaving Ezra behind alone."

"I did what I thought was best for us--for the three of us."

"You didn't have the right."

Vin's implacable voice echoed in the silence that followed. Nathan's broad shoulders slumped and he looked harried and older than his years and sad through to his soul. Chris let the silence settle on them all for a few moments, then drew everyone's attention back to him.

"All right, boys, now you can explain this mess to me. And make it good or you'll all have a long walk back to the settlement." No one spoke. "Fine. Nathan, you said there'd be three of you. Who's our uninvited guest?"

"He calls himself Ezra--amongst other things. He's been hanging around for the last year or so. He's a cheat and a thief and no damn good."

Buck looked at Vin and was impressed when the guy didn't say a word in protest, though his eyes screamed anger and his lips pressed together into a thin, pale line. JD looked shocked and unhappy and shuffled a step closer to Vin. Poor little bastard; looked like a nice kid. Hell, he looked just like a nice kid who didn't like it when his parents fought. They'd made their own odd kind of family, and, like all families, it appeared to have its skeleton in the closet.

Chris was speaking again. "JD. Nathan says you're good with tech. That true?"

The head with the shaggy black hair lifted into a proud tilt that made Buck grin to himself.

"Yeah, it's true. Not that Tomsville has much tech, but I'm better'n most with what we've been able to dig up."

Chris nodded. "Vin. You an ace tracker and hunter, like Nathan says? Or not?"

"I'm all right. Bag what I go after, don't waste shells."

"Fine. That's what we bargained for: a healer, a tracker, and a tech. We got bunks in here for six people. Supplies are low, but we can stretch to six. We work as a unit, and the Unit is six. We got a mission to do, and then we'll be heading for New Colony, which is a hell of a stretch better'n Tomsville."

He and Vin were in a staring match, bright blue meeting piercing dark green in a duel of wills. What they saw in each other's gazes was impossible to say, but it stretched for long seconds as the rest of them watched and waited, powerless. Vin was the one who finally spoke, in a low, even, hard voice.

"I reckon your Unit's five now, then."

He turned to the bunk and pulled Ezra upright, dragging him to his feet by sheer willpower.

"JD, open the door."

The kid opened the door and closed up on the other side of the stumbling Ezra. When they reached the open door, Vin said, "Stay with Nathan, JD. He's right--this is your chance. It might not be much of a chance, but there ain't no chance at all in Tomsville."

"I ain't going without you!"

"Stay!" Vin's voice was a low growl.

The kid looked close to tears, but he stepped back as Vin awkwardly manhandled his semi-conscious burden toward the door leading to the empty wasteland. In the red soil, the tire tracks leading back to the settlement, out of sight in a dip in the land, were deep gouges like giant claw marks. It didn't take an ace tracker to follow that sign back to the only shelter within miles, but it would be one hell of a struggle pulling along a man in Ezra's condition.

He was really going to do it, Buck realized, watching Vin as he maneuvered. He was as stubborn a cuss as Chris. Great; just what they needed. Another one cut from the same cloth.

"Ah, hell, shut the fucking door and let's get out of here." Chris turned away impatiently. "We've wasted enough time. Buck, help Vin get that cheat and thief back into the bunk."

"Ezra ain't no cheat!" JD said, hotly. "He's too good--he don't need to cheat."

"Too good to steal, too?"

Color flushed the boy's cheeks. "Well...."

"Whatever. As long as he don't steal from us, I don't care."

Chris nodded to Josiah as the back doors were shut and the limp seventh man was lowered back to the bunk. Josiah returned to the cab and started the motor.

"Don't change the situation none, though. There are only six bunks and we don't have any spare supplies."

Vin turned to scowl at Chris. "You don't have to worry about a bunk; Ezra and me'll share. And he can have half of my food, too."

"Mine, too." JD managed a pale but valiant imitation of Vin's hard-assed rebellious tone, but hung his head and shuffled his feet when Chris turned flinty eyes on him.

"Great. That way we'll have one well-fed thief and two half-fed contributing members of the Unit. But you got the general idea. You want him along, he's your responsibility."

Chris joined Josiah in the cab and Buck cheerfully leaned back on the bench, enjoying the general discomfort Chris was a master at creating. It was refreshing not to be on the receiving end. He saw the dejected slump of Nathan's entire gangling body as he watched Vin and JD settle Ezra, and felt sorry for the man. All sorts of unusual families around. Poor Nathan was just going through what parents did when they had to accept their kids were grown up and wanted to make their own decisions.

Buck glanced again at the bunk and the mostly unseen figure lying there. Or maybe Nathan knew something about this Ezra the rest of them didn't.

:::::::

It was strange, being inside a place that moved. JD had lived his entire life in the confines of Tomsville, which was small enough and backward enough not to have much in the way of transportation; most people used their feet. Not only was the rig moving, but it was outside the walls--outside! JD couldn't get enough of peering through the small, thick, reinforced, sand-scratched glass windows even though there was little to see but barren landscape stretching for miles. One time, he saw movement, and looked more closely. He sucked in a breath when he realized a moving black shadow was a mass of some kind of animal, all moving together.

"Packers," Buck said, leaning down to peer over his shoulder. "Some kind of rodent, probably; can't tell from this distance. They live in packs and swarm when they find prey."

JD thought of that black tide of teeth and claws rushing over him and shuddered. Buck clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly.

"Don't worry, kid; we're safe in here. And the packers are afraid of fire, so we have ways to keep them away when we go outside."

Buck sat down, fiddling again with a radio transmitter that didn't seem to be working. JD turned and looked at him. Buck was the friendliest of the three men who owned the rig. He smiled a lot and warmth lit his dark blue eyes each time. He was also the one who was most willing to answer questions. He was just plain comfortable to be around, and JD was grateful for the older man's presence.

It was close quarters in the rig. He was used to small, crowded spaces; hell, Tomsville was nothing but a series of small spaces marked off with boards or metal sheets or just curtains if nothing else could be found, each space crowded with a family and all its belongings. There wasn't much of what you could call privacy, so the rig wasn't any different in that way. It was bigger than some of the places he and Vin and Nathan had lived in since Nathan had led them out of the orphanage and the regimented barracks life there. The difference was they were sharing the small space with three strangers.

Well, heck, he supposed it was himself and his friends who were the strangers since the rig belonged to the older men. It was somewhat unsettling to think of being out in the middle of the wilderness at the mercy of three strangers. He kept looking at Nathan, checking to make sure Nathan was at ease, and Nathan did seem to be all right with what was happening. Nathan had known Josiah before, so that was comforting. Josiah was quiet and thoughtful, and his eyes seemed to be all-seeing, but he was a peaceful, easygoing, non-frightening man. Buck was out-and-out friendly. And Chris Larabee...well, he was scary, but that was as much his reputation as anything else, and the fact he looked exactly the way legend painted him. All in all, though, he hadn't done anything scary towards them yet. He'd even let Ezra stay, which meant Vin had stayed, which meant JD's own small family was complete, and it had seemed briefly but terrifyingly that morning that things might not work out like that.

So, it was all right to be here, though he was still watchful, trying to learn the lay of the land and how to get along with these strangers. They were heading for New Colony! The _city_. Oldsters said there wasn't anything left in the world that would have been called a "city" before, but New Colony was a city in his reckoning.

The three of them had talked endlessly over the years about seeing the city one day, but he'd never really believed it would happen. He just hoped the tension inside the rig would ease down a little soon. Vin was still mad at Nathan and Nathan was upset and Chris just frowned every time he looked at Ezra on the bunk. Ezra hadn't properly come to his senses yet. Vin had woken him up a few times when Nathan told him to, but Ezra had just blinked at them and been unnaturally quiet, answering questions with shrugs and grimaces, sipping the water he was offered before slipping back asleep. Even for Ezra, this was a long sleep.

"He's got a concussion, JD. He'll be okay; it's not a bad one."

He looked up with a smile at Nathan, who always seemed to understand what he was feeling. Nathan and Vin were the best things that had ever happened to him, and JD reckoned everything would be all right as long as they could stick together, and so far they were managing. He heard Buck curse as his fingers lost traction on a small screw inside the transmitter, and he got up and slid onto the bench at the counter beside Buck.

He was the tech person in the rig; reckon it was time he started paying their way.


End file.
